Uno Platform VS Code Extension Adds Mobile Debugging -- Visual Studio Magazine

Uno Platform VS Code Extension Adds Mobile Debugging

By David Ramel
05/12/2023

Uno Platform, which offers a framework for building cross-platform applications with .NET, announced a new version of its Visual Studio Code extension that adds mobile targeting.

That means VS Code devs can now use the tool to debug both Uno Platform and .NET MAUI applications for iOS and Android.

"The mobile debugging has been a highly requested item from the community," the company's Sasha Krsmanovic told Visual Studio Magazine. "This is a game changer as VS Code, with all the extensions it has in the marketplace, is starting to rival Visual Studio itself."

Uno Platform/.NET applications are based on the same foundation as .NET MAUI, Microsoft's cross-platform UI framework that is part of .NET 8. Uno Platform extends .NET MAUI to WebAssembly and Linux, as well as other platforms such as macOS and Windows. Uno Platform also enables Blazor WebAssembly applications to run on desktop and mobile platforms with native controls and features.

**[Click on image for larger view.]** Uno Platform Projects XAML Completion, Hot Reload and Debugging Support for VS Code *(source: Uno Platform).*

A May 2 blog post expanded on Krsmanovic's IDE comparison: "Just like in a fully fledged IDE like Visual Studio, you can now set breakpoints, exceptions, conditional breakpoints, logpoints and variables in your code or 3rd party code using SourceLink and sources embedded inside PDB."

Supporting features such as hot reload and IntelliSense-like code autocompletion, the extension now helps developers use VS Code to create, run and debug web, desktop and mobile applications using C# and XAML, working across Windows, Web/WebAssembly, iOS, macOS, Android and Linux.

The extension's marketplace description now indicates the tool provides:

XAML hot reload for mobile targets
XAML code completion for mobile targets
Debugging on mobile targets
XAML code completion on web targets
C# hot reload
Code-behind navigation from a XAML file

Here's a matrix that summarizes the features available to .NET developers for desktop, web and mobile targets:

**[Click on image for larger view.]** Feature Summary *(source: Uno Platform).*

The new version of the Uno Platform VS Code extension is available for download from the VS Code Marketplace. Along with working on Windows, macOS and Linux, it can also connect to remote instances of VS Code for debugging iOS applications on a macOS computer.

The tool has been installed more than 9,000 times, earning a perfect score of 5.0 from three developers who reviewed it.

About the Author

David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.

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